Never retreat!

[Smiling_Spectre]

In most (if not all) of my battles, while armed ships behave quite intelligent, non-armed ones (colonizers, invaders, etc.) are totally mindless.

I.e. they does nothing against their inevitable destruction. They simply float here until annihilated one-by-one.

Why is it so? Wouldn't it be logical for them to run for their lives immediately in sight of the enemies?

[Zaimat]

Non combatants hang back by default. As for retreating if their side passes a certain threshold (indicating they are losing) they will attempt to retreat like all ships on their side. In Moo2 they weren't in the battle but destroyed if your side lost I think. Here they have a chance to escape albeit not until that threshold of "losing" is reached.

[Smiling_Spectre]

Non combatants hang back by default. As for retreating if their side passes a certain threshold (indicating they are losing) they will attempt to retreat like all ships on their side.

They does not. I seen it many times already with my manual battles (and actually, I believe, I seen that retreats before last patches... but not recently, for sure).

Well, I cannot be sure about invading forces, as I didn't see any significant ones quite a long time, and smaller ones I am disabling on the first turn.

But I seen many-many battles with my invasions, where I am destroying space stations, boarding motherships and annihilating cruisers - and all this time handful of colonizers and transports simply sits here, doing nothing.

Check it, please?

Hmm, thinking about it, I never seen any retreats recently (except mine ones, of course). Of course, I am usually disabling all bigger ships at the first turn, but lesser ones usually quite bravely attacks me at second one. Can be coincidence though, because computer heavily overestimates it's strength.

Oh, another notice, about retreats... ah, well, I'll do it in "suggestions".

[Zaimat]

In combat Auto-Retreating is disabled for player race by design (since it's assumed the player will click Retreat on prompt or manually control ships including retreat in battle).

For AI races, retreating is in effect and I verified it's working. Their non-combatant ships retreat immediately, combatants retreat if their fleet strength threshold falls too low in comparison to the other side.

Keep in mind that ships can only retreat if they are capable (their power generators and engines are functional, etc).

[Smiling_Spectre]

In combat Auto-Retreating is disabled for player race by design (since it's assumed the player will click Retreat on prompt or manually control ships including retreat in battle).

Of course.

For AI races, retreating is in effect and I verified it's working. Their non-combatant ships retreat immediately, combatants retreat if their fleet strength threshold falls too low in comparison to the other side.

Keep in mind that ships can only retreat if they are capable (their power generators and engines are functional, etc).

*shrugs* Ok, I just tested it.

1. My battle fleet with 20 scouts and 20 bombers attacked Tantiks system. Scouts have 6 laser guns each, bombers are armed with 10 neutron bombs only.
2. Enemy forces consisted of one station, one shipyard, planet with missiles+lasers and 3 non-combatants - invaders packed with tons of soldiers.
3. I destroyed station and planet defenses in the first turn. And shipyard at the next one. I didn't touch transports at all for 4 turns. Just in case they will gain consciousness.

Transports didn't try to do anything. Ever. Until I lose patience and pressed "auto-resolve" (that, obviously, destroyed them).

Tell me now, what am I doing wrong.

Also, I confirmed one interesting problem with anisotropic movement. Worth to be explained in the other topic.

[Zaimat]

Only thing that may explain this is your scouts "relative strength" vs. their transports "relative strength" isn't crossing the required threshold for them to retreat. I'll try to reproduce the scenario.

[Smiling_Spectre]

Only thing that may explain this is your scouts "relative strength" vs. their transports "relative strength" isn't crossing the required threshold for them to retreat. I'll try to reproduce the scenario.

Well, I believe, I seen exactly the same problem even in my bigger campaigns, with several motherships, and such. But nevermind, question is wider: why transports have strength at all? I believe, any non-combatants must have zero strength, no?

[Zaimat]

I believe, any non-combatants must have zero strength, no?

Yes or at least very low. I think it's not low enough right now because the hull size is a factor. I'll tweak it for non-combatants that should improve the accuracy.

[Flinx]

Only thing that may explain this is your scouts "relative strength" vs. their transports "relative strength" isn't crossing the required threshold for them to retreat. I'll try to reproduce the scenario.

If you go into the combat screen, the enemy non-combat ships stay in their starting positions no matter what happens - even when the player has destroyed all of the AI's combat ships. It does not matter if the player is attacking or the AI is attacking.

[Smiling_Spectre]

Only thing that may explain this is your scouts "relative strength" vs. their transports "relative strength" isn't crossing the required threshold for them to retreat. I'll try to reproduce the scenario.

Test 1: explained above. No retreats.
Test 2: 2 troop ships vs three dozens of scouts+bombers above enemy planet in shared system. No retreat.
Test 3: Lone troop vs the same scouts+bombers in the middle of space. Works!

So, assumption: as both cases 1 and 2 goes over enemy planets - can it be that AI never retreats from it's own planets?
If not, then maybe enemy heavily over-estimates power of the planet (even defenseless!) in addition to under-estimating of my forces?

[Zaimat]

So, assumption: as both cases 1 and 2 goes over enemy planets - can it be that AI never retreats from it's own planets?

Yes, that's what it is. The AI ships won't retreat if they have a colony in the system, that's the only time they won't try even if they are losing.

[Smiling_Spectre]

Yes, that's what it is. The AI ships won't retreat if they have a colony in the system, that's the only time they won't try even if they are losing.

Hmm. Sounds wrong for me. Can it be changed at least for non-combatants? They cannot help to the colony anyway. Otherwise it's pure slaughter.

[Zaimat]

Yes indeed, I have changed it so non-combatants will retreat whereas combatants will continue to fight to the end if in their own territory.

[Smiling_Spectre]

Thank you!

[ketzerei84]

I've actually had an issue with auto-combat in some of my recent games, attacking a world defended by one starbase and one missile battery with a fleet of 10 motherships packing heavy neutrino cannon X's, I lose my entire fleet about 2/3 of the time. When I enter manual combat, the AI doesn't even get past my shields.

The best explanation I could come up with is that my ships are automatically focusing fire on the planet, which fires first, and the starbase is just happily picking them off while they whittle down the colony. If I manually control the battle, the starbase dies in the first salvo from the first ship, and the other 9 take out the planetary defenses in a round or two. Ocassionally I use fleets with particle cannons(for shield skipping $$), usually in the early-mid game before I have neutrino cannons up to a sufficient level to switch over.

That said, is there a way to set strategy for your fleets, i.e. manually set up target priorities for automatic combat?


Side note: (Honestly, I don't even bother with bombers.... most because it's annoying to precisely control their attacks when whittling a homeworld down and preparing to blockade until I force a surrender. I tend to pack neutrino cannons on my ships, and after wiping out and promptly recolonizing all the enemy worlds in a spiral pattern with 2-5 fleets(depending on the stage of game) I force them to surrender their homeworld, mostly because they have more slots, even if I can't terraform them)

[Zaimat]

If you engage combat and hit auto (to watch) you can see how the AI is behaving when controlling your ships. The auto-resolve actually simulates combat same as if you engage and watch with auto-on.

There is no way currently to give orders to affect AI behavior. What you can do right now is take over manual control at any time during combat (you can toggle auto on/off in combat).

[Smiling_Spectre]

Zaima-at. It's broken again. Now with another, more intricate way.

I noticed it after old tests, but hadn't time to write, and then you pushed me from it with several patches in succession. But now I tested it... yup, it's still here.

So, while I am totally happy with _defending_ battles now, transports behavior now broken in _attacking_ battles.

In short: can you disable auto-retreat of transports when they are in the attacking fleet? Because it made weird behavior now, after all my requested changes:

1. Attack fleet+transport engage in the battle.
2. All troop transports immediately retreats.
3. Attack fleet win the battle... but cannot invade anything, because, well, all troops are out of battle!

So, I can see two possible solutions:

1. Disable auto-retreat for attackers (less preferable)
2. Make check for troop invasion at the winner side - even if transports are retreated during battle (looks like the best solution as for me).

Please? One last change in that part? It's bearable now, but (knowing that you didn't change "gather all" behavior on sector engage invading now is too complicating thing, as I cannot invade with "invade" command if any battles are held here, and I cannot invade during battle, as all my invaders simply retreats.

(Also, as I noticed, I am too rare here now, so I'll put all my delayed complains now too. In the other posts.

[Bullwinkle]

I agree with SmilingSpecter. Also, in my recent battles, I manually attack a planet that has missile defense, space station, 3 combat ships (1 huge, 2 small) and 10 transports. The enemy transports just sit there waiting to be slaughtered and my transports run away, even though I had the superior fleet (2 or 3 motherships, 2 large attack ships, 3 medium attack ships, 3 scouts and higher tech than the enemy.

[Smiling_Spectre]

The enemy transports just sit there waiting to be slaughtered

This was discussed above, in the very this thread. Strange. As I understood, it supposed to be fixed in last patches. :/

[Zaimat]

Smiling_Spectre: I'll run some scenarios (about retreating units not being able to invade if you win battle) and see how it's behaving. As I recall it was working.

I agree with SmilingSpecter. Also, in my recent battles, I manually attack a planet that has missile defense, space station, 3 combat ships (1 huge, 2 small) and 10 transports. The enemy transports just sit there waiting to be slaughtered and my transports run away, even though I had the superior fleet (2 or 3 motherships, 2 large attack ships, 3 medium attack ships, 3 scouts and higher tech than the enemy.

Was it their last world by any chance (nowhere to retreat) ?